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Community Garden
A community garden is any piece of land gardened by a group of people. The American Community Garden Association explains, “It can be urban, suburban, or rural. It can grow flowers, vegetables or fruit. It can be one community plot, or can be many individual plots. It can be at a school, hospital, or in a neighborhood. It can also be a series of plots dedicated to "urban agriculture" where the produce is grown for a market. Regardless of the type of garden the community chooses to implement it can introduce a plethora of benefits to a community. These benefits include, but are not limited to: *Improving the quality of life of people that contribute to the garden *Providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development *Stimulating Social Interaction *Beautifying Neighborhoods *Reducing Family Food Budgets *Conserving Resources *Creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy, and education. *Creating income opportunities and economic development *Providing opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural connections. *Promoting Healthier Lifestyles Description There are generally two designations for community gardens; functional and visual. Functional gardens typically focus on bringing fresh, delicious, and healthy produce into a local community. Visual community gardens often focus on planting visually appealing plantsl, such as flowers or trees. Like many community vibrancy projects, however, community gardens are highly customizable to a local communities preference and a hybridization plan is relatively easy to come up with. It is often the case that community gardens are set up by local parks and recreation boards. Some community gardens have been instituted in micro-parks and donated land. Instances of both of these may be found in San Francisco. An excellent example of a small town implementing a community garden comes from Black Mountain, North Carolina. As with many community vibrancy programs, the effort of implementation was a joint effort between individuals and organizations. Black Mountain's story starts with Dr. John Wilson, who was cognizant of a certain desire for more gardening space in his commmunity. When Dr. Wilson petitioned the town for public space, the town obliged him with 1.25 acres of bottomland that was useless for building permanent structures along the Swannanoa River. Dr. Wilson asked the town’s Health Initiative for help. Michael Mayer, Chair of the Health Initiative, said they were seeking ways to improve health and reduce obesity, so they incorporated community and school gardening into a Fit Community grant proposal. Fit Community was a North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund grant program designed for North Carolina communities with the goal of increasing routine physical activity and healthy eating through diverse partnerships, promotions, programs, policies, and physical projects. Gardening provides opportunities for both physical activity and healthy eating, making their proposal successful. It was further expanded as well as the concept of community and school gardens and made possible by a grant to Eat Smart Black Mountain (ESBM), a program of the Town of Black Mountain, NC’s Recreation and Parks Department. That was July 2007 and they had 13 gardeners in the community garden and interest in creating school gardens by the principals of both local schools. The grant provided approximately $58,000 over two years. Active Living by Design and the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund worked closely to design and implement the grant program, and Active Living by Design provides technical assistance to applicants and to grantees. Since then, partners have leveraged this money with smaller grants and lots of volunteer efforts into a thriving gardening culture. Finally, strong support is provided by the town and many partners to sustain the work. The Health Service Program Administrator, a permanent full-time position in the Recreation Department, provides administrative support to the garden programs while the Community Garden Supervisor, now a permanent part-time position, handles direct oversight of the garden. The town has included the community garden in its Master Plan for space utilization and the Public Services Department provides support for major garden projects. Clearly, Eat Smart Black Mountain’s efforts are strongly rooted and expanding. The established policy and environmental supports are just the beginning. Future dreams include a commercial greenhouse at the Community Garden, which would provide space to grow vegetable starts for the garden’s donation program, rentable space for private gardeners and area farmers, and job training opportunities. Such a facility would further expand on Dr. Wilson’s original vision for the community garden, which now bears his name. Initially, grant money provided funding for part time garden coordinator Diana McCall and a part time garden educator. The two worked creatively and stretched their initial funding to last beyond the initial timeframe. With grant money for marketing, they printed aprons, T-shirts, and shopping bags publicizing the Eat Smart Black Mountain program. The program spread like a web over the community, increasing awareness of the garden. To continue community awareness, Diana provides cooking demonstrations at the local tailgate market once a month. She has created liaisons with local farmers and, by highlighting the products in season, educates the community to shop the market for nutritious meals throughout the week. Black Mountain residents Koriander and David Waterman, who follow a vegetarian diet, have farmed a plot for three years. “Most of the summer, we hardly buy veggies as we eat what we’ve grown. Through fall and winter, I’d say we provide about a third to a half of our total veggie intake with what we’ve frozen and fresh kale, broccoli, and cabbage from our third plantings. This spring, we had so much lettuce that we asked Diana and her volunteers to pick as much as they wanted after giving as much as we could to friends! We are happy, not only to grow and share 10% of our plot, but to provide additional veggies beyond that possible.